What is HEIC?
High Efficiency Image Container, created by MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) in 2015.
HEIC is the image half of HEIF, a container standard MPEG published in 2015. The idea was straightforward: video codecs had improved enormously since JPEG was standardised in 1992, so why not store a still photograph as a single video keyframe? HEIC does exactly that — the pixel data inside is HEVC (H.265) intra-frame data.
Apple adopted it in iOS 11 in 2017 and made it the camera default, which is why almost every HEIC file in existence came out of an iPhone. The motivation was storage: a 12-megapixel photo that would be 4 MB as JPEG lands around 2 MB as HEIC with no visible difference. Across a 5000-photo camera roll that is ten gigabytes.
The container does considerably more than hold one image. It can carry an image sequence, a depth map, an alpha channel, an HDR gain map, thumbnails at multiple resolutions, and non-destructive edit instructions — all in one file. Apple uses most of these: portrait-mode blur, Live Photo stills and HDR rendering all live in container extras rather than in the base image.
That richness is also why converting HEIC to anything else loses information no other format has a slot for.
Technical specification
| Property | HEIC |
|---|---|
| Compression | Lossy (HEVC intra-frame); lossless mode exists but is rarely used |
| Bit depth | 8-bit and 10-bit per channel |
| Transparency | Yes, as a separate auxiliary image |
| Animation | Image sequences supported; not used for Live Photos, which pair a separate video file |
| HDR | Yes — 10-bit plus a gain map layer |
| Maximum dimensions | 65,536 × 65,536 px |
| Colour spaces | sRGB, Display P3, Rec. 2020 |
| Metadata | Full EXIF, XMP, GPS, depth maps, portrait segmentation |
HEIC support in browsers and operating systems
Checked on 2026-08-10. We re-verify this table every quarter.
| Platform | Support |
|---|---|
| Chrome | no — never implemented, and Google has stated no plans |
| Safari | 17+ displays HEIC in the browser |
| Firefox | no |
| Edge | no |
| iOS | 11+ captures and displays |
| Android | 10+ displays |
| Windows | 10/11 require the paid HEVC Video Extensions from the Store |
| macOS | High Sierra 10.13+ displays |
HEIC compared with nearby formats
Against JPEG. HEIC wins decisively on efficiency — roughly half the bytes for the same visual quality — and adds 10-bit colour, transparency and HDR that JPEG cannot represent at all. JPEG wins on the only axis that often matters: everything opens it.
Against WebP. WebP compresses better than JPEG but not as well as HEIC, and it tops out at 8-bit with no HDR. What it has instead is browser support everywhere, which makes it the better choice for anything destined for a web page.
Against AVIF. AVIF is the closer technical match: same generation of thinking, comparable or better compression, and it is royalty-free where HEVC is patent-encumbered. That licensing difference is why browsers adopted AVIF and refused HEIC. If you want HEIC's efficiency in a format the web actually reads, AVIF is the answer.
When to use HEIC, and when not to
Keep HEIC when the photos stay inside Apple's ecosystem. Photos, iCloud, AirDrop and macOS all handle it natively, and converting only costs you storage and one generation of quality.
Convert away from HEIC when the file has to leave that ecosystem: uploading to a website, emailing to someone on Windows, submitting to a print service, or importing into software that predates 2017. JPG is the safe destination; PNG if you need lossless or transparency.
Do not choose HEIC for anything you publish on the web. No browser except Safari will render it, so a HEIC on a web page is an invisible image for most visitors.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my iPhone shoot HEIC instead of JPEG?
To save storage. HEIC stores a photo in roughly half the bytes of an equivalent JPEG, which across a full camera roll is several gigabytes. You can switch it off in Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible, which makes the camera shoot JPEG instead at a cost of about double the file size.
Why will Windows not open my HEIC files?
HEIC stores its pixels as HEVC video data, and HEVC is patent-encumbered. Microsoft ships Windows without the codec and sells the HEVC Video Extensions separately in the Microsoft Store. Converting to JPG avoids the issue entirely — the result opens everywhere with no extra software.
Will Chrome ever support HEIC?
Almost certainly not. Google has consistently declined to implement it and put its weight behind AVIF instead, which offers comparable compression without HEVC's patent licensing. If you need HEIC-class efficiency on the web, AVIF is the format to target.
Is HEIC lossy?
As your camera writes it, yes. The standard does define a lossless mode, but no phone uses it — the whole point of the format for Apple was to halve file sizes. That means converting a HEIC to JPG compresses already-compressed data a second time, which is why quality 82 or higher is a sensible default.